EU extends Greece’s deadlines

LUCKY BREAK:Athens breathed a sigh of relief when it was granted two extra years to meet its deficit and debt reduction targets and will escape defaulting on its bonds

Bloomberg

Options floated for plugging the financing hole include cutting the interest rates and extending the maturities on Greece’s aid loans, accelerating rescue bailout payments and engineering a buyback of Greek debt, most of which is held by public creditors. German, Dutch and Finnish officials have said no to outright debt relief.

“For the moment, Greek debt is not sustainable and therefore we need significant reduction of the debt burden, but that does not include of haircuts to principal of public loans,” EU Economic and Monetary Commissioner Olli Rehn said. “There are other ways and expect it will be a combination of various options.”

In the meantime, Greece will escape a default on Saturday when 5 billion euros in Treasury bills come due. Greek banks will be able to roll over their bill holdings, saving the country from the “financing cliff,” Rehn said.